The SS South America, also known as “The Ship of Gold,” was a 280-foot (85 meter) sidewheel steamer that operated between Central America and the East Coast of the United States during the 1850s. She was originally called the SS George Law (after George Law of New York), and she met her end on September 12, 1857 off the coast of South Carolina.
On September 3, 1857, 477 passengers and 101 crewmembers left the city of Aspinwall (now the Panamanian city of Colón) bound for New York City, with Captain William Lewis Herndon commanding. The ship was laden with 10 short tons (9.1 tons) of gold prospected during the California Gold Rush.
On September 9, the ship was caught up in a Category 2 hurricane off the coast of the Carolinas. By September 11, 105 mph (170 kmph) winds and heavy seas had shredded her sails. She was taking on water, and her boiler was nearing failure. When a leak developed in a seal between a paddle wheel shaft and the ship’s side, her fate was sealed.
At noon that day, her boiler could no longer maintain fire. Steam pressure plummeted, shutting down both bilge pumps. The paddle wheels that had kept the ship pointed into the wind failed as the ship settled by the stern. Passengers and crew hoisted an inverted ship’s flag (a signal of distress in the United States), hoping to signal a passing ship, but there were no ships within sight.
A bucket brigade was formed, and everyone spent the night fighting a losing battle against rising water. During the calm eye of the hurricane, attempts were made to get the boiler running again, but these failed. Then, the second half of the storm struck. The ship was on the verge of foundering and the hurricane drove the powerless ship hither and yon. The strong winds would not abate.
The next morning, September 12, two other ships were spotted, including the brig Marine. Only 100 passengers, mostly women and children, were transferred off the Central America in lifeboats. The ship remained in an area of intense winds and heavy seas that pulled her and most of her company away from possible rescue. Central America sank at 8:00 that evening, with a loss of 425 lives. A Norwegian bark, Ellen, rescued an additional 50 souls from the water and another three were picked up over a week later in a lifeboat.
The loss of life in this disaster was described later as “appalling” and having “no parallel” among American navigation disasters. When she sank, the Central America carried approximately $8 million in gold, based on a gold price of $1,738.70 per troy ounce ($56.087 per kilogram). Commander William Lewis Herndon went down with the ship. He was a distinguished officer, serving during the Mexican-American War, and had explored the Amazon Valley. Two US Navy ships were later named USS Herndon in his honor, as was the town of Herndon, Virginia. Two years after the sinking of Central America, Herndon’s daughter Ellen married Chester Alan Arthur, later the 21st president of the United States.
On September 11, 1988, a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to the last known location of the Central America by the Columbus-America Discovery Group of Ohio, led by Tommy Gregory Thomson. They used Bayesian search theory, which has been used several times to find lost ships and locate flight recorders of downed airplanes. The ROV found significant amounts of gold and artifacts, which were recovered and brought to the surface by another ROV built specifically for this recovery.
The total value of the recovered gold was estimated at that time at $100 to $150 million. One gold ingot weighing 80 pounds sold for a record $8 million, and was the most valuable piece of currency in the world for a time.
Your characters, if they read the news at that time, would have certainly heard of the terrible disaster and the loss of all that money. They might even have been among the prospectors who’d originally located the gold itself.
J.E.S. Hays
www.jeshays.com
www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks
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